9 original Central Ideas and Details questions, easiest first. The main idea of a passage, or a detail it actually states. Answer them all, then submit once to see every answer explained.
Community gardens in the United States produce, collectively, an estimated value of fresh produce that rivals the annual budgets of several small municipal parks departments, a statistic often cited by advocates pushing city councils to allocate more unused land for gardening plots.
According to the text, why do advocates cite this produce-value statistic?
C — To push city councils to allocate more unused land for garden plots.. The text states this statistic is 'often cited by advocates pushing city councils to allocate more unused land for gardening plots'—directly supporting choice C.
Ants communicate largely through chemical trails known as pheromones; when a worker ant finds a food source, it lays down a pheromone trail on its way back to the colony, and the strength of that trail indicates the quality and quantity of the food found.
According to the text, what does the strength of an ant's pheromone trail indicate?
D — The quality and quantity of a food source.. The text directly states the trail's strength 'indicates the quality and quantity of the food found'—this is stated explicitly, unlike the other unsupported options.
Certain species of ant practice a form of agriculture, cultivating fungus gardens inside their nests by feeding the fungus chewed leaf fragments; in return, the fungus provides a stable, digestible food source that the ants could not otherwise obtain directly from raw leaves.
According to the text, what does the fungus provide the ants in return for being fed leaf fragments?
C — A stable, digestible food source they could not otherwise obtain directly.. The text directly states the fungus 'provides a stable, digestible food source that the ants could not otherwise obtain directly'—this is stated explicitly, unlike the other unsupported options.
Pistol shrimp produce one of the loudest sounds in the ocean by snapping a specialized claw shut so quickly that it creates a collapsing air bubble; the resulting shockwave can stun or even kill small prey caught nearby. Scientists studying this mechanism hope it could eventually inspire new methods of generating powerful underwater sound pulses for industrial or medical uses.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
C — The pistol shrimp's sound-generating mechanism may hold insights relevant to future technology.. The text describes the pistol shrimp's bubble-collapse mechanism and connects it to hopes for inspiring new technology—matching choice C; the other choices overstate or misstate details not supported by the text.
Lichens, which are formed through a partnership between a fungus and an alga or cyanobacterium, can survive in some of the harshest environments on Earth, from Antarctic rock faces to desert surfaces. Because lichens grow extremely slowly and absorb minerals directly from the air and rain, scientists use their size to estimate how long a rock surface has been exposed, a technique called lichenometry.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
C — Lichens' slow, steady growth allows scientists to use them as a dating tool for exposed rock surfaces.. The text explains lichens' partnership and slow growth, then states this property is used by scientists as a dating technique (lichenometry)—that is the main idea. The other choices overstate or misstate details.
A recent survey of small business owners found that the most commonly cited obstacle to growth was not access to capital, as many assume, but difficulty finding workers with the specific technical skills the business required.
According to the text, what did the survey identify as the most common obstacle to small business growth?
B — Difficulty finding workers with specific technical skills.. The text explicitly states the most common obstacle was 'difficulty finding workers with the specific technical skills the business required,' explicitly ruling out capital access as the assumed but incorrect answer.
Public transit systems in several large American cities carry more passengers on a single weekday than the total attendance at every professional football game played nationwide that same week, a statistic often cited by transit advocates lobbying for expanded federal funding.
According to the text, why do transit advocates cite this passenger statistic?
C — To lobby for expanded federal funding for public transit systems.. The text states this statistic is 'often cited by transit advocates lobbying for expanded federal funding'—directly supporting choice C.
Interviews with retired airline pilots revealed that most did not cite fear of flying-related incidents or mandatory age-based retirement rules as their primary reason for stepping away from the cockpit, but rather a desire to spend more unstructured time with family after decades of an unpredictable, travel-heavy schedule.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
D — A desire for more unstructured family time was the most commonly cited reason for retirement.. The passage explicitly rules out fear and mandatory rules as primary causes and instead identifies 'a desire to spend more unstructured time with family' as the reason—matching choice D precisely.
A study of remote-work arrangements found that employees who had a dedicated, separate home office space reported similar levels of self-reported productivity to employees without one, but employees with a dedicated space reported significantly less difficulty mentally separating work time from personal time.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
B — A dedicated home office space appears linked to better work-life separation but not necessarily to higher productivity.. Since productivity was similar between groups but work-life separation differed, the dedicated space is linked to one outcome (separation) but not necessarily the other (productivity)—matching choice B, and directly showing choice D is false in this case.
Score:
Every question above is now marked up: the correct answer is highlighted, any wrong option you picked is flagged, and each explanation is open.
No. Every question here is original, written to the College Board's published Digital SAT Reading & Writing specification for the Central Ideas and Details skill. No retired or copyrighted College Board material appears anywhere on this site.
Central Ideas and Details asks either for the main idea of a short passage or for a specific detail the passage states. Both are answered entirely from the text — nothing is inferred, nothing is brought in from outside — but the main-idea version requires the choice to cover the whole passage rather than one part of it.
For a main-idea question, summarise the passage in one sentence before looking at the choices, then eliminate any choice that is true of only one sentence. For a detail question, find the exact line the question points at and match against it word by word — the correct choice paraphrases it, but it never adds to it.
No, and deliberately so. This drill is 9 Central Ideas and Details questions back to back; a real Reading & Writing module is 27 questions in 32 minutes drawn from all eleven skills. Use a drill to fix one weakness, then take a full module to practice the real thing.
No. The SAT has no penalty for a wrong answer — a blank and a wrong guess both score zero — so answer every question, including the ones you have to guess.